The Mallorcan Bookseller (The 3R International Series Book 1) Read online

  “So where was this? Was this when you worked in Madrid or before, as you’ve never really told me about that?” said Sam.

  “Put the kettle on again dear, let’s have another cup of tea,” said Anna deciding now was as good a time as any to tell him about at least part of her previous life.

  With two new mugs of teas in front of them she told him about being recruited into MI6 at university and where she had subsequently worked. He knew enough about the Official Secrets Act not to pry into the details, knowing she was giving him as much as he needed to know. He sat back, taking it all in.

  “Mum, you were a bloody spy!” said Sam, “My God, I never knew. Did Dad know?”

  “Well of course you never knew dear, that’s the point of being a spy,” she smiled, “and no, your father never knew either. As far as he was concerned I’d been with the FCO since leaving university.”

  “What about Gran and Gramps? Did they know?”

  “Oh heavens no,” said Anna. “Can you imagine Gran knowing I was a spy? She would have been so worried about me and I’d have then been fretting about her worrying.”

  “So I guess you probably had to stop when you had me?” said Sam.

  “Yes, it was a time when there was no chance of them accepting me back into the field once I had you, so I decided to take a desk job and there was a job going in Madrid,” said Anna.

  She was now worrying that he would start to push her on who his biological father was. She had always said she had been involved with someone and it hadn’t worked out and by the time she knew she was pregnant, he had long gone. That was the story she had stuck to and it had been the one that Luis had been okay to hear, so she hoped he didn’t push on this, not just at the moment anyway.

  Sam was trying to take it all in. His mother had been a spy! She’d told him a little bit about being in the field, being a U/C operative, which he knew was a bloody dangerous pastime and that she had also been involved in recruiting field officers and U/C training. So she must have been damn good at what she did, especially to be a U/C field officer and trainer, as he understood a little bit about the U/C world and how much the officers trusted their trainers, literally with their lives.

  “So, presumably this means that Greg is also ex-MI6 or one of the other Security Services?” he said finally.

  “Yes Sam, it does.”

  *****

  Greg met Terri in Plaça Mayor and they walked down to Plaça Cort and went to one of her favourite coffee stops, Cappuccino Grand Café in the boutique hotel, Hotel Cappuccino. They sat outside on the front terrace and ordered some coffees and Terri also went for Gató Mallorquin, one of the traditional local cakes she really liked, as she hadn’t eaten since getting off the plane that morning.

  “Hell of a coincidence running in to an old girlfriend then Dad, one in every port then?” she teased him.

  “She wasn’t a girlfriend,” he said a little too firmly. “She was my U/C trainer and a bloody good one at that,” said Greg.

  “Definitely a girlfriend then!” said Terri and waited.

  “Look, there’s nothing to tell. It was thirty odd years ago, long before I met your mother, so can we move on please,” said Greg.

  His daughter just stared back with a knowing look, with a smile slowly appearing.

  “Okay, okay, chill Dad, but you know I will get it out of you at some stage,” said Terri.

  He had no idea why he had bitten when she had quizzed him. Why was he getting, what, defensive? ‘This is nonsense,’ he thought.

  “Yes, you probably will, but can we get back to what we’re here for?” said Greg.

  They ran through what each of them had discovered. A couple of hours before they had nothing concrete to go on, but now they had two solid leads to follow up. A good start that was looking promising. He sent the images Terri had got from her helpful young man at the camera shop through to DI Garcia, with a note asking her if she could get anything on the guy getting into the driver’s seat. Then he rang John MacDonald and asked him to check his and Sheila’s bank records for the past month for anything irregular going out of the account.

  “What am I looking for Greg?” said John.

  “Maybe a payment to someone who looks like an internet company. It’s possible, just possible, that Sheila may have been subject to an IT scam sometime before the burglary took place. I’ll fill you in on the details later, but let’s only go down that route if, and only if, we can see a payment going out of one of your accounts, so check both your debit and credit cards. One possible payee name is Intertech, but don’t limit your search to just that name as these people use multiple identities,” said Greg.

  “Okay, but she didn’t say anything to me about any IT problems, but then again, she dealt with all that stuff on the home computers and she’d be more likely to ask the boys about something than me. I’ll get on it. Meet tonight? 7.30pm, bring Terri and we’ll eat afterwards,” said John.

  Greg smiled. It wasn’t really a request, but more of an instruction.

  “Yep, see you later.”

  *****

  DI Lori Garcia was getting nowhere fast. They had put feelers out in the criminal community and were tasking all their OCG informants, but so far they’d had no positive results. She knew the OCGs who were operating in the Balearics, but with no leads, she was struggling and was getting pressure from above to bring some good news. Presumably her boss was getting hassle from the local politicians too, because nobody liked high profile crimes on the islands and you couldn’t get much higher than the murder of an ex-pat Brit.

  There had been nothing from the street CCTV around El Corte Inglés, so when she got the text from Chambers she was both annoyed and pleased. Annoyed that her people hadn’t been as effective as he seemed to have been, but pleased because at least she now had something! She was always wary of offers to help from privateers, but she had to admit, this guy seemed to know his business. By his manner, he was probably an ex-Cop, no, thinking about it, he was more likely ex-security services. That may be a good or a bad thing, as he may be more inclined to go beyond the boundaries of the law and it was that element that made her wary of people like him, because it usually brought with it other collateral damage. She stopped herself, she was going into a negative zone, when all he had done so far was given her something to go on. She texted him back with a ‘Gracias. I’ll get back to you’ and then sent the images through to her Intel team to start work on.

  She transferred the images onto her desk top and took a better look at them. The Intel guys could no doubt do something to improve the resolution, but it was still worth her taking a moment to have a closer look. It was a damn good image of the guy stealing the van. Side on, as he looked over his left shoulder as he got into the driver’s door. Admittedly it had been taken from across the main road, so it was quite a way from the van, but they must be bloody good cameras. ‘Why the hell didn’t my team find these?’ she thought. ‘That will be a good one to try to explain to the boss.’

  She parked that problem for the moment. The key thing was she had a start. He looked white European, about 6’2”, maybe 6’3”, athletic build, maybe 85 kilos. He was wearing a grey polo shirt and black chinos, watch on his right wrist. Good, at least that’s something different about him. Potentially, but not definitely left handed. She hoped the hi-tech team could do something more with the face because he looked to have quite an angular jaw line, so maybe he was East European?

  She got some answers an hour later. She was impressed. They had done a pretty good job, made easier the guy said by the quality of the camera that took the pictures. She had a close up. Not good enough for colour of eyes or anything like that, but it did show something, possibly a tattoo just below his left wrist, where your watch strap would usually do up. The tech guy told her he had tried to get into the mark, but couldn’t get it into any finer detail.

  “Best guess then. Is it a tattoo?” said Garcia.

  “Best guess? Yes,” said the tech
guy.

  That put him being left handed in some doubt then. If the tattoo meant more to him than wearing his watch on his left hand then it must be important. She knew a lot of the tattoos that came out of Russian prisons held a lot of kudos to those who had them, so maybe it was something like that. Now she had to be patient and wait for her Intel team to run it through their systems, but in fairness, she should really put a call into the 3R guy, Chambers.

  *****

  Sam was sat at the desk in Sa Petita Llibreria. He was putting together a mind map of what he knew and didn’t know about the two cases involving Bill Patterson and Sheila MacDonald. He had learned the mind mapping technique during one of the leadership programmes he had attended at the National Police Training School in Bramshill, deep in the Hampshire countryside, before it had closed and everything had moved to a rather dull, but apparently more cost effective site in the Midlands. Essentially it was a bit like a spidergram, where you put headings down on a blank sheet of paper and then grew links from each heading with something that was connected with the heading. People sometimes did this in a circular fashion, but his thinking was a bit more linear and so he started with a heading at the top left and continued down the page and then wrote the links to the right hand side of each heading. He started in the order he had heard the story, with Bill as a heading, followed by the other headings of IT Scam, then Possible Burglary, Murder of Sheila MacDonald (SM), OCGs and finally 3R.

  He was then adding in comments to each of the headings from what he knew when Anna came back in after going to see Alfonso an hour before.

  “What are you up to?” said Anna.

  “Just figuring out what we know and don’t know about what’s been going on. I’ve just about finished with the ‘what we know’ and I’m starting on the ‘what we don’t know’ bit if you fancy joining in?” said Sam.

  She joined him at the desk and they both started coming up with things that they didn’t know.

  Sam said, “We need to get a lead on who the scammers are. Jimmy did some work but hasn’t got very far, although he thinks they may be in India, but it’s more a professional guess because we know so many scammers operate from there.”

  “Has Greg come back with anything yet?”

  “No, he hasn’t and to be honest Mum, I don’t know if he will, after all he’s working for John MacDonald and has nothing to do with what happened to Bill,” said Sam, who also still wasn’t a hundred percent sure how far he could trust this guy.

  “I think you just need to ask him Sam,” said Anna. “I’m sure if there’s any sort of link to Bill, then he’d be happy to tell us how far he has got.”

  “Well you’ve got more confidence in him than I have, that’s for sure, but hey, there’s nothing to lose is there,” said Sam, “but first, look it’s four o’clock and time for tea and then I’ll call Greg.”

  Despite all her years in Spain and Mallorca, he knew one thing his mother still very much enjoyed and indeed had persuaded her many Spanish and Mallorquin friends to enjoy as well.

  “Tea and almond cake it is then,” said his mother.

  *****

  Greg got the call back from Chris MacDonald quicker than he expected.

  “Greg, we’ve found a credit card payment from last week. Dad knows nothing about it. It’s for €899 and payable to the company you mentioned, Intertech. So what does that mean? Was she scammed?”

  “Yes, it looks like that Chris,” said Greg “and there’s a strong possibility the scammers sold your mum’s details to an OCG, I mean an organised crime gang, who are probably responsible for what happened to your mum.”

  “Bloody hell, the bastards!” said Chris. “What do we do next Greg?” He paused, “You know Dad is after blood,” he added quietly.

  “Yes, I know, but we’re a long way from anything like that at the moment. It’s going to take some tracking down to find this Intertech. They usually hide behind a multitude of shell companies, but we may have better luck with the OCG, so I’m going to hook back into the London cop and of course Lori Garcia.”

  “Okay,” said Chris. “Dad says you’re coming for dinner around 7.30. I’ve booked a table down at the terrace and I hear Terri is on the island and is joining us?”

  “Yes, she is, we’ll see you later,” said Greg who knew Chris had a bit of a soft spot for his daughter. He was slightly older than her and had been through a messy divorce, caused primarily by him never being at home as he was forever travelling around the world for Trent MacDonald. Then again, Terri was also always travelling, so maybe they might be a good match?

  Greg then sent a text to Lori Garcia and Sam Martínez. ‘Confirmed, SM made a CC payment to Intertech for €899’. Almost immediately Sam pinged him back, ‘When can we meet?’ which was quickly followed by an incoming call from Garcia.

  “When was the payment made?” said Garcia.

  No hello or pleasantries thought Greg. She must be getting a lot of flak from her bosses. Whilst he didn’t always link up quite so much with law enforcement agencies, he recognised she was a good cop and would probably be happy to mutually cooperate with him, especially as he was the one who had brought two massive leads to the table.

  “Last week, Tuesday to be precise, so five days before the attack on her villa. When were the other burglaries you mentioned, in relation to the scams?” asked Greg.

  “Similar. The burglaries were between five and seven days after the scam. Look, I’m really grateful for your help Señor Chambers,” Garcia paused.

  “Please call me Greg and before you go on Inspectora, I do understand you will want me to go through you and not to undermine anything you may be doing in your investigation.”

  “Okay, Greg it is and you can call me Lori, except perhaps when I am with my team. Then it may not be appropriate, is that alright with you?”

  “Yes of course Lori, thank you. Listen, I am meeting the MacDonalds tonight at 7.30, do you have time now to perhaps meet up for a quick exchange of ideas. Happy to do that at the station or if it’s more convenient and you can book off duty, maybe we could do it over a glass of wine?” said Greg.

  She looked at her watch. It was just coming up to five.

  “I like the second idea better. Can you be at Bar 13%, it’s a little wine bar on Carrer de Sant Feliu for 5.30?” said Garcia.

  “Yes, look forward to it,” said Greg.

  He then turned and looked at Terri who had been checking messages on the 3R jobs she was managing.

  “Can I drop you back at your place and I’ll come back and see Lori?” said Greg.

  “Lori now is it? So is this a date or an intel meeting?”

  She was teasing him, so he just looked at her shaking his head. After dropping her back in Portixol, he made his way back through the traffic. Much of it was leaving the city as workers made their way home, so it didn’t take him long to get back to the main underground carpark by La Seu. He then made his way past Passeig de Born and up through the side alley to 13%, the small wine bar where she said to meet him.

  It was still really hot, so it was a bit of a relief to get inside and out of the sun. At 5.30 he saw the door open and he didn’t recognise her first of all. She hadn’t changed and so was still in a business style blue jacket and trousers, but she had let her hair down and was wearing big, fashionable sunglasses and looked a lot less detective and much more woman. She walked confidently up to him and he stood up to greet her.

  “Ah, such the English gentleman Greg,” she smiled.

  He smiled back, not too sure what to say, something which puzzled him as he wasn’t usually short of a word when he needed it.

  “I’m sorry if this isn’t appropriate Lori, but you look amazing.”

  “Ah, the dilemma of keeping business from pleasure Greg, but thank you, that’s nice of you to say. So, what shall we drink? A rosado I think?” said Lori, signalling to the waiter and then ordering two large glasses of local Mallorquin vino rosado.

  He had arranged to
see her to talk through the case. That had been the main but not the only reason. Ever since they had met he had wanted to spend time with her to find out more about her. He hadn’t been in any sort of a relationship for some while now and other than the odd date here and there, he had realised he had got out of the habit of wanting to spend time with someone, other than for work, so this felt good. He knew he still needed to focus on the case. John wanted results and so did he too. He would find those responsible and make sure they paid for murdering someone he cared a lot for, but for now, on a sunny Mallorquin evening, it was good to just sit, talk and drink some very nice wine with an attractive woman.

  They talked about who they were and their backgrounds. Lori also seemed in no rush to talk about the case. He knew she was probably under pressure to get results, so taking a moment to kick back and relax was probably something she hadn’t done in a while either. She looked relaxed and animated as she talked and he found himself just looking at her. So when she stopped, it took him by surprise.